You must love yourself to find true happiness. Sure, we have all heard this before, constantly being told not to put our happiness in the hands of others. We all have felt it. The feelings of our happiness fleeting along with utter disappointment in a love or friendship. But here’s why. Why you need to see your intrinsic beauty and why you need to hold yourself with the utmost kindness and grace. Loving each and every flaw, cork, and honorable quality you possess.

You must love yourself to ensure you never settle. Never settling doesn’t mean your relationships – romantic or not – will be perfect. It simply means you must know your worth, what you are looking for, what will make you happy, and what types of people to keep in your life. Love yourself to give yourself what you deserve, because frankly no one else in this entire world will guarantee this for you.

Many of us enter relationships that aren’t meant for us. Ending in hardship, feeling used, and hurt. Realizing these feelings all too familiar to myself, I suddenly found that I didn’t think I deserved better. So I settled and made excuses for poor behaviors. Forget those mistakes and the people in your past. Instead, focus on you and take initiative to make yourself someone deserving. This requires knowing yourself, being honest with what you need to work on, and what fabulous qualities you already possess. You must love yourself to work on yourself, to see what you actually deserve.

Love yourself, so you are your own best friend. To be able to pick yourself up when you fall, to reach for help when you need it, and to be kind with all matters within your heart. You must love you. You must be as you as you can be and embrace it with warm arms.

If you want to be happy, truly to feel whole and secure, you do not need anyone to make you feel this but yourself. True, it is wonderful to have a friend or lover that can give you these things – but nothing is permanent and feelings are evanescent.

You know what isn’t going anywhere and what you can count on? Yourself. Your future, your success, your happiness, your choices, and your life. You have control over all of these. It begins with a choice. Are you going to start loving yourself today? This very minute? Are you going to take care of yourself, follow your own advice, and hold yourself to the standards you deserve?

I hope you find this deep love. And sure some days will be harder than others, like in any relationship. But never forget you always have yourself and you must care for this relationship, as it is the most important one. This relationship is your half in any other relationship. You must start with you.

Love you first. The rest – friends, jobs, family, lovers, chances – are just a few extras life decided to give you. Enjoy and appreciate them while they last and even if they don’t, you’ll be fine because of the strong foundation you already have created within yourself.

Above all never, ever, let anyone in your life that takes or lessens you. We all work hard to love ourselves, the last thing we need is someone who drains our efforts.

Be you. Be free. Remember time spent on you is never wasted. Love yourself.

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5 Things to Remember Every Day To Be Happy

“People look for retreats for themselves, in the country, by the coast, or in the hills . . . There is nowhere that a person can find a more peaceful and trouble-free retreat than in his own mind. . . . So constantly give yourself this retreat, and renew yourself.”